


Unforgiven

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, psychiatrists doing more harm than good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:00:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Major Winchester is making Klinger's life miserable. The rest of the camp wants to know why.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	Unforgiven

It was an unspoken rule in most army units that NCOs were seen by their so-called betters as a sort of subspecies. Officers barely regarded them as human - never mind actual military - so treating them with common courtesy, to say nothing of respect was out of the question. The 4077 was zanier and more flexible than most posts, but some traditions remained. Klinger accepted it, was used to it, and rarely bucked under or even sulked at the abuse that was daily lobbed his way. It took a certain amount of flexibility - maybe even grace - to maneuver around verbal landmines while wearing strappy heels, but he was up to the challenge (and had really nice legs). 

But that was all before “the great change.” After Klinger caught on to what was happening, he dug out the calendar to review. No full moon. No ominous zodiac signs. No plague of locusts. No Friday the 13th. There was no exact reason that he could put his finger on, but Major Charles Emerson Winchester III was out to make his life more of a living hell than it already was. Klinger wouldn’t have thought it possible, but damned if the man didn’t soon prove himself the match of fleas, chilblain-raising cold, artillery-induced terror, and maybe even mess tent chow. 

Klinger tried everything he knew to mitigate this new barrage of verbal abuse. He straightened up his act. He was pleasant. He even left off his costumes. None of it made the slightest dent in Charles’ decision to mistreat him. Fortunately, Klinger wasn’t the only one who had noticed the change and he wasn’t the only one who wanted it to stop. 

Potter was the first to confront the haughty surgeon. “Look here, Winchester, your parents might have been rich enough to buy you a whipping boy of your very own, but that was back home. I resent you making the same out of my company clerk. Can the crusade of criticism! Stop digging your spurs in - that’s an order!” 

BJ went after him next. “Are you playing some organic, close-range version of Battleship, Chaz?”

Winchester affected aloofness. “Whatever are you talking about?” 

“The verbal missiles you’re launching at Klinger. Congratulations, Chuck! You’ve sunk him! He’s drowning! Now lay the hell off!” 

Margaret joined the fun after him and Charles cut her off mid-sentence. “Oh, do come now, Major. I’ve seen you sharpen your tongue on the man more than once.” 

Her hands went to her hips. “Snap at him? Sure! Klinger’s like one of those too-friendly puppies that jumps all over you and gets you muddy. You yell at it to get down, but you don’t mean it. And back he comes, all open and gentle. Or he used to. You’ve kicked all the puppy dog eagerness out of him. Maybe he can forgive you for it, but I don’t think I can.” 

When she had gone, Charles hung his head. 

***

Halfway through this personal season of storms, Klinger had even gone to a fortune teller and had her lay out his cards. It was a childish measure, but he was out of ideas. The reading was perfect - spot on. He just had to hope that the  _ outcome _ would prove the same. 

The teller quickly laid out nine cards, quick as a gypsy girl he’d known in Toledo who did brisk work in winter love potions before disappearing to Coney Island for the summer to read palms on the boardwalk. 

The Knight of Pentacles represented the central issue. “Earth like fire,” the teller told him, tapping the face of the card. “Like a volcano spilling lava. Someone who will not stop. Who does the same thing over and over until it works. Someone bound to honor. Duty. Responsibility.”

Klinger swallowed audibly. It sure sounded like Charles. 

Pentacles reappeared to illustrate the obstacle in his way. “The King is a diamond man. Money man. This person is connected- knows how to make deals and profit from them.” She frowned. “I don’t see a profit for you, though.” 

“Figures,” he joked. A diamond man. There was only one man at the 4077th who could buy and sell the rest of them. 

His goal was the Emperor... reversed. “You can’t accomplish what you want without becoming someone you are not.” 

The basis for the whole mess was another reversed card: the Wheel of Fortune. “A tiny thing that went wrong but can’t be taken back. Bad luck. Old curses heading home to roost.” 

It was almost funny. Kind of reassuring, too. If bad luck was what had Winchester sore, then at least he hadn’t  _ done  _ anything wrong. It sure made it hard to take back, though. And Klinger liked animals too well to think of swinging a dead cat over his head in the moonlight (as the fortune teller sagely advised). 

Justice appeared next and Klinger was assured that others were working hard on his behalf to set things to rights. “Good luck to ‘em,” he said. 

The Page of Wands represented an approaching change. Its appearance made the teller’s eyes light up. “A great passion.”

He “hrumphed” at that. These days, he was lucky if he got someone to sit with him when they had a movie. 

Then came the Tower. “A sudden change. A new life.” 

“Hopefully in Toledo,” he mused. “Skyscrapers are kinda like towers, right?” 

His environment came next and he knew it couldn’t be good even before she spoke; he worked in a war zone. “The reversed Chariot is power used incorrectly. Strength turned against those little equipped to face it.” 

That could be the refugees fleeing from the north, the villagers displaced from the south, the orphans created by the war, or the men bleeding in the OR. It could also be him facing down another Winchester tirade. 

Finally, a good card turned up. It didn’t look good, of course; the art for the Hanged Man was unsettling. But the teller assured him that it meant only that he would let go of past beliefs and grow beyond them. 

One card remained. She turned it and smiled. “If you stay the course and endure, this will be you: the Magician. You hold within you the ability to lead others through the words you speak, the ability to handle problems, and a chance to have a new life. Don’t give up.” 

She didn’t charge him for the reading.

***

When cards failed to deliver up answers he could implement (staying the course meant staying a punching bag), Klinger took a moment from his clerking duties to make a call. Sidney Freedman spoke in his usual sunshine-and-sarcasm tones and joked about how glad he was that Klinger wasn’t calling regarding his quest for a section 8. 

When presented with the problem at hand, he said, “Well, Klinger if you want to understand Winchester’s motivations, you should ask him.” 

“Well, there’s just one little problem with that, Major. That’s kind of like saying ‘that tiger that wants to eat you? Just walk into his cage and ask him why.’”

“Ahh. Well, when did this tiff with Major Winchester begin?”

“That’s just it! I don’t have a tiff! I’m not in a tiff!”

Sidney held back a chuckle. “You’re saying the Major’s issues are one sided?”

“Right! I tried to be nice to the man. Help him settle in. When he first came... well, I don’t know if I should tell you this, doc.”

“Lay it on me. These sessions are confidential.” 

“I just don’t want to give you the wrong idea. With the dresses and all.”

Receiving confirmation that Sidney would not misunderstand, Klinger continued. “Alright, well, when he first came, I thought he had kind eyes.” 

“Sure. I can see it. What changed your mind?”

“He opened his mouth.”

They shared a laugh. In the end, Sidney had no perfect answer, but he wished the corporal loads of luck. 

***

Hawkeye came to chastise Winchester last, but not least. He began en media res as he so often did. “Do you remember our last clerk, Charles?”

“Our myopic little Iowan? Of course.”

“Did you ever hear that I went after him once? Really tore into him?” 

“No.” The o was long and drawn out, a warning Hawk refused to heed. “But I sense that I am about to.”

“The entire story isn’t important,” Hawk said, sitting beside him but staring out before them, onto the plains of memory. “What matters is that I gave the kid some bad advice. As a result, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He got hurt. I screamed at him.

And then, just like you’re experiencing now, everybody in camp screamed at me. And I mean everybody. Cook’s aids and lab nurses I’d never seen before were taking numbers to call me scum. Potter took his shot. So did Margaret. Father Mulcahy.” 

Charles held up a hand. “Pierce are you attempting to empathize with me?” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“Then would you mind giving a signal when we come close to approaching the  _ point _ of this trip down memory lane?” 

Pierce thought of a signal he would have liked to use, but settled for a toothy grin he didn’t feel. “Here it is, Charles. I yelled at Radar because  _ I _ was feeling guilty. I didn’t know what to do with my guilt, so I sharpened it and used it to hurt him, thinking it would keep  _ me  _ from hurting. I don’t know what it is you’re feeling, but feel free to take a swing at me right now if I’m wrong when I say that Klinger isn’t at the heart of this thing.” 

Winchester didn’t stir. His face looked like marble statuary long lost to the sunlight: wan, easily broken. Hawkeye walked away. 

***

When he finally summoned the courage to go to Klinger, Winchester came face to face with a man in a floor length white floral brocade with silver accents whose dark eyes were swimming. The juxtaposition nearly made him jump in surprise. “Klinger!? What’s wrong, man?” 

The corporal scrubbed at his traitorous eyes. His voice was tired. “What have I done wrong now, Major? If you came here wanting me to feel bad about it, you can see I’ve beat you to the punch.” 

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Isn’t it rather warm for brocade?”

“I thought it’d cheer me up.” 

“I take it that it’s not been a smashing success thus far?” 

“What do you want, Major?” 

“I... I want you to stop crying, first of all.” He extended a handkerchief- pale blue and monogrammed. 

Klinger looked like he might not accept it at first, but grudgingly took it and pressed it to his eyes; he either wasn’t wearing mascara or had gone in for something with more staying power than the last time Charles had seen him in the rain. 

“I have been unbearably cruel to you.” 

“If you’re waiting for me to disagree with you, don’t hold your breath.” 

“Perhaps it will come as some comfort to learn that you’re very well loved at the 4077th. My behavior has won me my fair share of chastisement.”

The clerk huffed a laugh that still had tears in it. “The gang’s been standing up for me, huh? Nice of them. But don’t let them fool you - they all take their shots, too. I am just an enlisted person after all.” He hoped the others hadn’t  _ sent _ Winchester; he really didn’t want a forced apology, no matter how upset he was. 

“Yes. I know.” He swallowed and it felt like someone had mined his throat with jagged glass. “I’ve heard them. But when Potter growls at you, he’s just overworked. Meanwhile, Margaret takes comfort in exercising her ability to yell in true military fashion. My behavior cannot be so easily excused... or forgiven.”

Klinger pulled the brocade around himself as if against a sudden chill. “You’re here to apologize?”

“Yes!” The word came out as a sort of choked cry. “Though I understand if you refuse to accept.” 

Klinger looked wary. “Lay it on me, Major,” he said at last in a this-better-be-good tone. 

“I have never belonged anywhere,” Charles began, looking at his feet. “Not in my home with my family, not in various boarding schools, not in college or med school. I have always been apart.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “I learned the hard way that it was better to be so. I held myself away from everyone. I intended to maintain the same boundaries, to follow the same pattern, here.”

“But you decided that getting close enough to tear me down would be more fun?” 

“No.” Klinger was surprised to see that Charles’ hands were shaking. Whatever this was, it wasn’t easy for him. “Klinger, at nine years of age, my father looked at me and said, ‘this one will never run the business or follow in my footsteps unless he is cured.’ I spent the next three years being questioned and prodded and ‘improved’ by a troupe of well-meaning psychiatrists. They didn’t cure me, by the way. They just taught me to hide my feelings really well.”

Klinger flashed a wry smile. “So yelling at me is some kind of breakthrough? Congrats, I guess?” 

Winchester wondered that this man he’d hurt so badly and so often still had wit and strength to joke. “The feelings I’ve hidden weren’t feelings of anger. My father scorned me because he looked at me at nine years old and knew, somehow, that I would never take a wife. Never father a child. Do you understand?” 

Klinger could only nod. 

“I tried to be the man he wanted. I didn’t give in to the desires that drove me. I kept everyone at arm’s length so there could be no chance... and then I came to Korea.” In that moment, it looked as though he might join Klinger in crying. “I met you. And because I cannot escape my thoughts of you, my desire for you, I-I said terrible things. I thought that if I hurt you, if I drove you away, it would make it impossible for me to ever reach for you.” 

Klinger wondered if this was what it felt like to be struck by lightning. His ears were ringing. His eyes had dried out because he’d forgotten how to blink, or, at least, he’d forgotten to do so. The handkerchief was balled up in his hand. “Hold the phone, Major,” he said at last in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. “You’re saying that... that... what are you saying?” 

“That you torture me with your eyes and your costumes and your quick hands in OR. That it hurts just to be in the same camp as you... so I tried to stop hurting,”

“By hurting me,” Klinger finished. “How’s it working out?”

Charles made a gesture that conveyed pain, sleeplessness, and futility most of all. 

“Major, why didn’t you just come and tell me?” 

“What... what would you have done?” Charles was clearly staggered by this hitherto unconsidered suggestion. 

“Told you that you’re tearing yourself to pieces over nothing, for starters. Did it ever occur to you that you’re driving yourself crazy over nothing more than a little crush?” 

“You don’t believe my feelings are sincere?”

“Who knows? You said yourself you’ve never let yourself get close to anyone before. Maybe this isn’t the catastrophe you think it is.” 

“So what would you have me do?”

“I think you need to find out what this is. If it’s real.” He came closer. “Kiss me.” 

“Max! I’ve spent the last month tormenting you!” He touched his cheek. “I made you cry.”

“Yeah. Sounds like you did lots worse to yourself, though. So, let’s find out if it was worth all the fuss.”

Charles was taller than the clerk; he bent and drew him close to capture his mouth. Still less than thrilled at the emotional beating he’d taken, Klinger expected to feel nothing during this exploratory exchange. But staying numb turned out to be impossible. 

Charles kissed him as if to remove the sting of every angry word he’d hurled his way; the kiss was thorough, deep, and profound enough to mess with gravity. By its end, Klinger felt like lying down; Charles had sunk to his knees. His bowed head rested against Klinger’s stomach. 

Klinger stroked his thin hair. “It is real then. I thought so. You wouldn’t have fought it so hard otherwise.” 

Charles looked up with dazed, damp eyes. “Aren’t you going to toss me out? I’ve more than earned your contempt.”

“I don’t hate you, Major. I’m sorry for what your father and those head men did to you, though. But why’d you have to go and take notes? Just because they were ripping you up, you didn’t have to join in!”

“I’ve never known anything else.” 

Klinger gently disengaged himself. “Let me show you then.” He turned down the gas lanterns until the only glow came from the stove.

“What are you doing?”

“Those lanterns cast crazy big shadows. I don’t think you’re ready to share all this with anybody else who happens to be walking around the camp.” He turned to flip through a selection of outfits on hangers, settling on a house dress. He traded the brocade for comfort, Charles turning away to let him change. Newly attired, he led the surgeon to his cot. 

“Max?” 

“You tried to outrun this thing. You tried to fight it. Now try just letting yourself be who you really are. I’ll bet you anything it’s easier.” 

“I am so sorry for the terrible way I’ve treated you.”

“You were just trying to protect yourself.” He smiled and took his hand. “If I had known you were just flirting, I wouldn’t have taken it nearly as hard!” 

They ended up facing each other, lying down, trading kisses in the dark. Klinger had never been kissed that way before. There well of hunger in Charles and was matched, if not  _ overmatched  _ by an equal measure of innocence; his clutching fingers and panting breaths were somehow both achingly erotic and completely guileless. 

_ Ten minutes ago, I was close to hating you _ , Klinger thought as he deepened the kiss. But the man in his arms wasn’t a Bostonian aristocrat or a gifted surgeon or a Major with a voice given to command. Here with him Charles was wonderstruck and wandering - almost lost - hungry for what he’d always denied himself, unsure of what to do or even what he deserved. 

Smiling at being put in charge, Klinger led, stroking his back, letting him have his fill of his mouth. He’d never known anyone that seemed to need kissed quite so badly. It seemed to hurt him every time Klinger so much as angled his head. If he drew back, even a little, Charles followed, found him again. It was mad to think so, but Charles only seemed to feel safe when their mouths were joined. 

Eventually, Winchester sat up, wrapped his arms around himself, and shattered, tears slipping from the corner of his eyes. Klinger couldn’t maneuver him out of the position, so he curled into his side. “C’mon, Major, I’m not that bad, surely?”

Charles laughed; he didn’t want to, but it was hard to resist that teasing tone. “Idiot,” he said affectionately. “I’m not... this isn’t because of you. It’s for  _ me _ , for the foolish manner in which I held myself back from you. I never should have believed those lies...”

“Now you don’t have to. Major, I think everyone who decides to stand a little outside the norm goes through that fight. You had it worse than most, it sounds like, but you made it.”

Charles wiped his face. “How can you possibly be so kind to me?”

“For one, you need it after the way you’ve been wringing yourself out like a mop. For two, if kissing was a career, you’d be richer than you are now. I sure wish you’d gone  _ this  _ route instead of yelling!” 

Several emotions passed over his features; he was abashed, pleased, embarrassed, wondering. “You’re saying... I... I please you?” 

Klinger reached for his hand; it was cold, a testament to his tumultuous emotional state. Kissing warmth back into the digits, he settled it where he wanted it, over his clothes. Then he pushed into it and felt shameless pleasure when Charles gasped. 

He looked from the huge hand, hovering gently, to the surgeon’s face. He kissed his cheek. “Go on,” he encouraged. “You can touch me if you want to.” 

“Max! I have never accompanied you to a movie or gotten you a gift or shared a meal with you. I cannot,”

He was cut off by Klinger’s laughter. “Charles, we’ve already had a big fight. You’ve made me cry. So we skip ahead a few steps. The movies will be there. Did you really think  _ this _ would be a paint by the numbers relationship?” 

“I... I never imagined that you would allow me to hold you.”

“Well start imagining! And when you figure out what sounds good, I’ll be right here beside you, okay?”

“What... what about you? I’ve been so cruel. I would like to make up for my past behavior.” 

He saw that Klinger was about to brush off this request and gripped his hand.

“Please, Max.”

Something in Klinger knew that this might actually be the thing Winchester needed most. “If it’ll help get that look off of your face, okay.” 

“Anything. Anything at all. I am yours to command.” Seeing the light of mischief kindled in Klinger’s eyes, he added, “A section 8 yet requires  _ four _ signatures.”  _ And I don’t want you to go _ . 

“Fine, if you’re not using your hands for signing out perfectly deserving psychos, I’ve got something else you can do with them.” Leaning up, he spoke into the curve of his ear. 

“I’d be honored,” said Winchester. 

Klinger laughed again. “I appreciate that, Major, but there’s nothing too noble about being in my bed. You do know you’re out of my league, right?” 

“I know I don’t deserve to be here, rather. But,” he raised Klinger’s hand and kissed it, “I’ve every intention of winning the right to remain.” 

Klinger would have reassured him; for all their past conflict, he’d been invited in. But before he could get the words out, Charles had set him on his feet and done away with his dress. As the fabric slipped from his shoulders, Klinger tried to remember the last time someone had treated him with this level of tenderness. 

Charles knelt before him. Though he’d promised Klinger his hands, the Corporal felt his mouth first, his lips grazing his nipples. One hand slid up from his stomach to his chest, tangling in the curls. The other slipped between his thighs. Klinger drew in a sharp breath. He could have stood, without trembling, the mouth pressing wet kisses to his naked chest. He probably could have endured, too, that hand exploring him, the thumb tracing the heavy curve of his balls. But the two together split his concentration; he felt too much, too fast after too long a time alone. 

Gripping one of Charles’ shoulders for support, Klinger managed to get out something about a chair. Winchester tilted his head to look up at him from his lazy perusal of his most intimate parts; that look was half-challenge, an are-you-quite-sure-you-can-stand-for-me-to-pause stare. Klinger would have liked to tell him he wasn’t  _ that _ good, but his trembling thighs would have made a liar of him. With one last gliding touch that was so decadent and indecent Klinger nearly melted into it, Charles obliged. 

Klinger had exactly enough time to sigh at no longer having to hold himself upright before those too-clever hands were back at their appointed task, backed up by an eager mouth that was driving the Corporal crazy with the yearning sounds it made. His legs opened wider without bothering with his permission; his mind might still be processing Charles’ sudden-seeming change of heart, but his body had greenlit everything happening to it and had even endorsed a blank check on any further fun.

When those hands resumed their work, Klinger’s back arched over the chair. “That cannot possibly be comfortable,” Charles said, sounding as proper and calm at a man at a dinner table. 

“It’s fine, sir,” he croaked. 

“Fine, eh? I think we can do better.” 

He did, too. 

Klinger melted back into the seat of the chair, or he would have if Charles’ hand hadn’t been there to squeeze him, to tease his opening. Klinger closed his eyes.  _ I am sitting in  _ **_one_ ** _ of his hands _ , he thought, feeling much too warm. And the other was stroking him, the thumb brushing his balls. 

“What an exquisite array of sounds you are capable of making,” Charles said, looking up at him. 

“Yeah, maybe, but I thought you  _ didn’t  _ want to make me cry again. You’re killing me, Major.” 

“Shall I assist you off of that chair, then?”

“And onto your lap? Yeah.” 

“Not so fast, there are steps in this dance, my impatient creature. What manner of doctor could I claim to be if I didn’t take time to thoroughly prepare you, dear heart?” 

Klinger moaned. “I don’t know if I can hold out for that, sir.” 

“You’re being both darling and dramatic, and really, who better to die with than a doctor?” As he spoke, he overcame Klinger’s protests to push inside with one finger.

The Corporal’s breath caught and his back arched again, but he couldn’t feel the chair at all - just the man working him, opening him. Rendered shameless by need, Klinger whined and pleaded; at this point, he was willing to hurt for what he wanted. Writhing under a too-sure touch that was intent on pushing him past what he could easily endure, Klinger managed to quip, “You were easier to handle when you were yelling at me, Major!” 

“I thought I’d offer you a chance to even the score. Although I suppose you’ve technically been yelling  _ for  _ me.” 

Klinger threw a hand over his eyes in a show of drama. “You’re being cruel again.” 

“Tell me that in fifteen minutes -provided you can talk.” 

One thing you had to hand to Winchester, thought Klinger (who was fine with handing him over everything and then some at the moment) he backed up his bold claims. Shuddering in the physician’s arms, the Corporal did lose his speech for a moment… along with the ability to move. 

When he came back down, he was looking up into gentle, merry eyes. “Do you forgive me, Max?”

“If I say ‘no,’ will you do that again?” 

“Don’t engage in sexual scheming while my heart is in the balance, dear-heart. You know perfectly well that I will do whatever you ask whenever you wish it, provided we are without witnesses.” The glow in the Corporal’s eyes had prompted him to add the last; if there had ever existed a being who could make him forget himself to his peril, he was here in his arms. “Now, do you forgive me?” 

“What do you think?” 

“And you’ll let me stay?” 

“I think I have to. Part of my spine melted.” It won him the laughter he’d hoped for, but he hoped Charles could also hear that he wanted him near. It would take time, but Klinger intended to undo the damage those psychiatrists had done, even if his entire body had to become a bandage.

“I will make it up to you,” Charles said later. “The awful way I treated you.” 

“I’m fine. But if yu do want to do something for me, you can quit beating up on yourself.” 

“How did you know that I was?” 

Klinger tilted his head, emerging from the hollow of his throat. “You said it’s what you’ve known, so it’d be easy to fall back into. But I forgave you and I meant it. I don’t want to be something you feel bad over. Got it?” 

Charles agreed and slipped into sleep with the traces of a smile on his face. Klinger snuggled against him, contentedly, thinking,  _ It’s a start _ . 

  
End!  
  
  
  
  



End file.
